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Concerning The Curious Burial Customs of the Witches of Megaira

Elizabeth R. McClellan

On Megaira the witches gave up
solstices and equinoxes fifty years
after the Displacement. The groves
(more shrubs than trees) flower
hydroponically, light-years from
the moon and seasons once
demanding such rites.

To be a witch,
wrote the elders of the time,be practical. Make old ways new.

They circle still, under
strange-named moons:dust-devil, star-bright,
snow and wolf and harvest
left to history.

The satellite shines into the groves, live,
streaming from unblinking camera towers
high above the unforgiving surface,
brushed clean by tiny automated processes.

Air and water the witches know. Fire
is an old recording that crackles,
surface of a distant blazing sun,
the blooms from the bottoms of ships
as they leave land, sky, atmosphere.

Earth? They live in drydust, even if
the young ones call the element
after their own planet, clunky
in the litany of air water fire,

favor goddesses of justice, truth, flowers,
beauty, underworlds, crossroads,
talk less and less of those who bless
rivers, oceans, trees, heavens, fertile ground.

Make old ways new, they say
to elders who grumble
as elders always will.

Our mothers knew we could notbe buried in the earth of Megairaand return to the earth.

Our sisters in Kemet bless Megaira’s ground as Nepthys’ body, for it mummifies without natron.

The rest of us go to the earthwe have, fertilizeour tanks and farms,feed our families to come.

It is grisly but it is our way.This planet was a punishment for sin we did not admit.We made old ways new, in peace, mostly.

Who is envious and angry now,who torn apart for their crimes?

Such wisdom is not the stuff of bestsellers.
Greed wins out. Thus the grainy film
that tore through intergalactic academe
like wildfire, better in its unblinking way
than a thousand artfully edited shock pieces,

the icon that got
so many bright graduate
student bodies searched
for hidden recorders,
secret allegiances,

by peoples who had never quite trusted
the nice-enough offworlders to start with.

EXTERIOR. NIGHT.

The witches gather around a rocket,
almost cartoonish, traditional old-Earth,
historical documentary-type. It towers
above the articulated figures,

white shifts over their suits.

There is the body of the dead witch,
wrapped in her winding sheet, no inch
of skin exposed, the dust gathering already
in the folds of her white shroud.

There is air to carry sound,
but unbreathable for lungs
evolved for less grit.
The film’s focus is softened,
as if shot through a dirty cloud.

Helmet loudspeakers dulled with dust-patter
render the audio tinny, whispery,
properly arcane. It seems to be
the figure behind the corpse that speaks:

Why is this one not returned to the earth?

One steps forward.

She must not be allowed the earth’s strength.

Why may this one not feed those that come after?

Another. There is poison in her bonesunfit for our children’s marrow.

Why must this one be weak? What is her poison?

A cacophony of voices. She spoke lies,sent death and poverty, attacked the weak, would not accept correction, dared name herself queen.

Megaira has no queen, they say,
in what seems like unison.

Noted a well-respected
doctor of philosophy
and accidental film critic,
after the Megaira Incident:

the dead woman had been freeze-dried, her corpse preservedfor an old-Earth year and a day—

the elders circled every third night in the groves,one hundred twenty-two chancesfor anyone to come, speak,conference in, claim her body

for their grove or garden before the end. Some could have usedthe nutrients. But none came.

This was not a puppet trialbut sentencing for a verdictpronounced some time beforeby pure consensus of silence.

An expensive punishment, too—time was they went hungryto pay for the parts, make surethe next rocket lay ready.

They might go a hundred yearsbetween launches.

Such wisdom is also not the stuff of bestsellers,
but produced respectable revenue, considering.

On the screen, a grim gavotte,
suited bodies bearing
the body, stiff between them,
solemnly sliding their burden
into the ship that will bear it.

One seals it, tiny torch a blinding spot
of light in the film, the others circling,
arms raised. The torch-bearer sears
indistinguishable sigils into the patch,
the door, continuing around the tube
as the circle hums protective harmonies.

It is not important,
said the good doctor,if the door-seal survivesthe path to the sun.

The real locking mechanismwould hold at seven gee,though they have a lovely taleof one whose bones felllike a meteor shower, burning.

So cleansed by fire and air, they say,Megaira forgave, blessed her bones.

They put meteors by the airlocksin their homes, a new folk magic, long-ago apostate now fierce protector at the gate.

The dust whirls faster, erases the details.
Dim figures drop their arms, walk
counterclockwise three times, the welder
at the end of the line, filing

Elizabeth R. McClellan is a poet, editor, lawyer and occasional loudmouth who lives in the geographic center of the State of Tennessee and considers the state her backyard. She is a previous Rhysling Award nominee, winner of the 2011 Naked Girls Reading Literary Honors Award, and the 2014 Rhysling Chair. Her work has appeared in the Moment of Change and I Know What I Saw anthologies, along with Apex Magazine, Calliope Magazine, Goblin Fruit, The Legendary, NewMyths.com, and Stone Telling. For more, follow Elizabeth on Twitter at @popelizbet, check out her author page on Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/ermcFB or visit http://www.elizabethrmcclellan.com.